The Question of God
C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and The Meaning of Life
by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi., Jr.
I have been challenged by this really cool compilation of Lewis and Feud's work. Here's a passage that I just now read and found fascinating.
"Sex: Is the Pursuit of Pleasure our Only Purpose?"
Chapter: 6 (page 136-137)
"Lewis astutely pointed out that we must understand what Freud means when he speaks of excessive repression leading to neurotic symptoms. We must not, Lewis writes, confuse the term "repression" with "suppression" - as so many in our culture tend to do. The word "repression" is a technical term that refers to an unconscious process that, when excessive, may give rise to symptoms. Excessive repression, Lewis accurately points out, usually occurs early in life, and when it happens, we are unaware of its happening. "Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all." Suppression, on the other hand, is the conscious control of one's impulses. By confusing the two, many in our culture concluded that any control of sexual impulses is unhealthy. Lewis argued that this is nonsense. In reality, lack of control is what is unhealthy. Lewis writes: "Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to... disease, jealousy, lies, concealment and everything that is the reverse of healthy... For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary...."
The Media has contributed to the confusion in our culture between repression and suppression. "Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel" Lewis notes, "associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humor." He claims this association gives a false impression and is a lie. "Like all powerful lies," Lewis explains, "it is based on a truth...that sex in itself... is 'normal' and 'healthy'...The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal." Lewis adds that human sexuality, like gravity or any other aspect of our universe, cannot in itself be moral or immoral. Sexuality, like the rest of the universe is given by God and therefore good. How people express their sexuality, on the other hand, can be moral or immoral.
Lewis goes beyond Freud to argue that people who control their sexual impulses understand their sexuality more than people who fail at controlling them. "Virtue- even attempted virtue- brings light; indulgence brings fog."
Your thoughts?
-Shanna
I think it's intense how heavily Lewis notes the media influences when the influences of his time paled in comparison to the influences of today. How much larger of an issue is the suppression vs repression topic today than it was then? It's totally sad that instead of noticing the problem and solving it, we continued to view sexuality through skewed lenses causing us to increase the problem. How greatly we need to see how our souls long for Christ.
ReplyDeleteI also like that Lewis didn't just argue this as a moral issue but a 'health' issue as well. He states that loss of control is not beneficial because it does result in 'disease, jealousy, lies, etc." -the problems that we are now trying to clean up in our society. We set the bar at a certain point and then have all these issues (like the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS) that we will spend the rest of our lives and the next generation's lives cleaning up...or trying to.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a better understanding of the urgency of this issue. Even as I write and read about these topics I am moved to tears but only occasional action. I need to be more active!